Breaker Boys: The NFL's Greatest Team and the Stolen 1925 Championship by Fleming

Synopsis

In 1925, the Pottsville Maroons, a semipro football team from the heart of Pennsylvania coal country, joined the young National Football League. These hardscrabble miners, led by flamboyant player-coach Dick Rauch, did the unthinkable and dominated the NFL.

Near the end of their first season, the Maroons faced the first-place Chicago Cardinals in what many viewed as the championship game. They overcame a Windy City snowstorm to win 21-7 and ended the season with the best record in the league.

When the public demanded it, they also played an exhibition game against an all-star team from Notre Dame, which only a year earlier had won the college championship behind its legendary Four Horsemen. The Maroons defeated the Irish 9-7, and the shoe that Charlie Berry used to kick the winning field goal was bronzed for eternity.

By the following spring, however, the team's NFL championship was history.

In February 1926, the league's owners, citing rules violations in the Notre Dame game, awarded the title to the Chicago Cardinals, though the team initially refused it. For 80 years, Pottsville fans have fought to have their championship restored. Breaker Boys tells the team's remarkable story.

John Maxymuk - Library Journal

Fleming, a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine, recounts the tale of the league-leading Pottsville Maroons, whose suspension from the National Football League (NFL) in the closing weeks of the 1925 season resulted in their losing their claim to the pro football championship. Pottsville's first-year team had beaten all comers and signed on to a potentially lucrative exhibition game against a University of Notre Dame All-Star team to be played in Philadelphia. The NFL, however, forbade the Maroons from participating in that game for territorial reason; when the Maroons played anyway, they were expelled from the league. This well-written book breathes life into dead players and other principals in the drama who may be long forgotten but whose stories illustrate just how much the origins of professional football differ from the contemporary game. Fleming makes a good argument for the Maroons' title rights and restoration, but he exaggerates a bit regarding the all-time nature of their greatness and their impact in establishing the viability of the NFL. The controversy has continued on into the 21st century, with the NFL reexamining the case as recently as 2003. Recommended for all libraries. [Fortress Features has acquired film rights to the book.-Ed.]

Biography

David Fleming is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine and a columnist for ESPN.com's Page 2. Before joining ESPN, he covered the NFL for six seasons as a staff writer at Sports Illustrated. He is also the author of the memoir Noah's Rainbow: A Father's Emotional Journey From the Death of His Son to the Birth of His Daughter. He and his wife, Kim, live in Davidson, North Carolina, with their children.